Ashleigh Hill
About Mission Year
Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. We take teams of young people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. We are committed to the command of Jesus to “love God and love people,” by placing the needs of our neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor. Learn more about our first year program…
Ashleigh Hill's Blog
Fears of Your Life, or; The Faithfulness of the Lord is Precise. / Apr 2, 12:37 PM
There’s this book Fears of Your Life written by Michael Bernard Loggins, a mentally handicapped writer. In his book he lists all his fears. Death by car accident. Dracula. The death of his Grandmother. Time bombs. His hope was to battle his fears by writing them down. My serious fears are as follows: That people are scared of me. That I seem unapproachable or angry. That people think I have it all together. That I do not seem gentle.
Excerpt From Journal Entry: December 20, 2009
I read in a book once that women feel as though they are too much and not enough at the same time – take it however you will but, that suggestion put an explanation to a nameless feeling I’ve owned for years. I don’t know why I (we) feel like we can’t be confident and gentle at the same time, but it’s horrible. I don’t know why I think others can’t see me as both (and I’m not looking for affirmation that you, reader, might). I’m just getting over it now. I understand why some women are so angry and why they just get angrier when someone blames it on hormones or sensitivity. My prayer is for a confidence and wisdom that is respected and a gentleness and patience that draws people to God. I want to be accessible. I want to follow the Lord and I don’t want people to think I can do it by myself. I’ve found that these are the types of prayers the Lord so eagerly answers…
… This is the Christianity I want to believe in – a confident and gentle one – even if people blame it on hormones and bleeding-heart sensitivity.
Leadership?*
I stand
Like she did, tall
Walking in her footsteps
The dust, the heat
The smell of wind and diesel
And my people followed
*from More Than Serving Tea
Journal Entry: March 29, 2010
As I was saying good-bye to some of the women at Breakthrough last week, before we headed back to spring break, our friend Pat pulled me aside. She asked if I would help her with applying to a few jobs when we got back. She then told me that she thinks of me when she thinks of finding a job. She said I am approachable, gentle, and confident. The faithfulness of the Lord in answering sincere prayers for His kingdom is astounding.
Comment [1]
Things I Thought I Understood, pt. 4: Christianity / Mar 23, 09:45 PM
Acts 2: 44 & 47
All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need… And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 4: 32-37
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Matthew 25:35, 40
“For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’
———-
Reading these verses unsettles me. Part of me is saying, “Why did nobody ever think to teach me this way of life?” The other part of me is whispering, “Why did I never figure this out for myself?”
Why have I never been told to consider others in need in every aspect of my life? Why did no one ever challenge me to give everything away to care for others so that I can truly rely on the Lord’s provision? Why has the word “nest egg” been beaten into my head like a thick steak? Why did no one in any church I’ve ever been a part of, or at my Christian alma mater, or in my Christian family, or in my Christian circle of friends, or in my Christian heart, ever tell me that believers get together, pull their possessions and resources and help their friends in need? Why was I taught about a Christianity so intent on the individual relationship with Christ that we forgot about the whole body? Why did nobody ever tell me that people are in need of love, attention, and food, and writing a check so that an organization will do it for us is not what Christ asked of us? Why did no one tell me how hard this really is? Why have I been spoken to as if being kind and trusting in God that He’ll provide money and husband for me is Christianity? Why did I read that part of Matthew 100 times and not realize that to know Jesus and for Jesus to know us is to be friends with those who are hungry and oppressed? Why has this verse been spiritualized to the point of mush? Why can we take parts of the Bible so seriously on some points (i.e. verses on homosexuality) and not so seriously on others (all of the above)? Why does such a watered-down version of Jesus exist? WHY.
I know this is an exaggeration, but it’s not a very big one. This mix of sadness and resentment rears it’s head into my train of thought every week. Why was I never taught to befriend the people I was taught to stay away from? I know that ranting against the church is not helpful but why did no one ever tell me to live like the early believers, with one another, sharing in hopes that we will all be filled? Why is our response to the poor whittled down to a few political terms that keep people from following the gospel because they will be labeled as something that didn’t even exist when Christ was preaching?
But I don’t really have the right to be mad because no one has been hiding this from me.
I’ve been thinking about why I did Mission Year. Is it because I think this is how a Christian should live their life? Is it because I’m scared I’ll never do anything worthwhile and I’ll wake up one day, 50 years from now, and realize I never really sought Christ? Is it because I want to know the Lord and I want Him to know me? A few weeks into Mission Year I shared with my team that I do not know what it means to fear the Lord. I am learning. I fear a Lord that would have me take Him and an uprooted lifestyle very seriously.
“By doing this, you understand the amount of suffering there is in carving a piece of stone.” – Oliver Dumont, stone carver
Comment [1]
More Things That Have Happened / Mar 17, 05:49 PM
This week Carrie and I were waiting at the bus stop and I watched a man across the street buy something from a woman with his left hand and almost immediately snort it off his right hand. I forget how out-in-the-open everything is around here.
Five minutes later Pedro and I were standing at another stop and we saw a fight start to break out between two young men, in the middle of about 20 young men. The weather is getting nicer so, everyone is out again. A white cop in a powder blue Crown Royal pulled up and into the middle of the group, flashing his siren. Sometimes so much of this experience is a stereotype and it makes me sad. I am reminded to ask “why is it this way?” and not just roll my eyes at the black kids vs. white cop scenario.
This week I was finishing my lunch at Breakthrough and a woman came up to me and said, “Hey Ashleigh!” I said, “Hey,” but didn’t recognize her at all. A second later I realized it was the woman I wrote about last week who was in so much emotional pain she could barely talk to me. I didn’t even recognize her; she looked like a new person. She told me she’s been trying to stay out of trouble and is working with a local mental health organization, Thresholds. This was so incredibly encouraging. Her daughter is living with a good foster Mom, which rarely seems to happen.
This week I helped our friend Pat with her resume and she said it changed her whole perspective on how she saw herself. I can’t believe the little things God uses to wake us up. She would have been happier to get an apartment than write a resume but, the joy that has come out of it is astounding. Being able to separate her past from who she really is, even on paper, was door-opening for her. She spent an hour telling me how good God is and how encouraging it was to lay out her skills and talents, while accepting and separating her true self from the reasons for the gaps in her resume.
This week I wrote a paper on how racism still exists in Chicago and how I see it in EGP.
Last week we mourned with our friend Linda after her son committed suicide.
This week a guy on our block told us we’re not like other white people because we stop and talk to him without worrying that he’ll steal our money. He said he’s been baptized before but knows it doesn’t mean anything. He said he talks to God like he’s talking to us. He said he wants to go to church with us sometime because he’s trying to stay off the streets. He gets it.
This week our Mission Year training was about being real when it comes to your own feelings, listening to your teammates’ feelings, and the barriers we put up that keep us from listening. I am so thankful to be part of an organization that promotes service, reconciliation, church involvement, simplicity, discipleship, and healthy emotional behavior.
This week we went to a real grocery store and were overwhelmed by all the choices. As soon as Mission Year is over, I’m running back to buying everything at Whole Foods and Trader Joes so. fast.
This week I trained to do night outreach on Breakthrough’s RV.
Right now Carrie and Meredith are watching a movie. Jeff and Pedro are helping neighbors duct-tape the knob lock of our 3-flat’s front door so it will stay open. It was locked shut and no one could get in or out. I’m not convinced this will ever truly get fixed by an actual locksmith. Here’s hoping that my bolt lock key miraculously starts working.
Comment [1]
That Have Happened This Week. / Mar 5, 09:04 PM
A lot of things happen in a Mission Year week. Here is an example:
Early this week I drove one of the women living at our shelter, who has become a good friend to us, to her storage unit so she could store a lot of her stuff that we don’t have room for at the Joshua Center. We lugged several boxes and trash bags full of her stuff up to the 3rd floor of a cold, clinical Public Storage space where a timer controls the hall lights. I was thinking about all those stories I’ve read in the paper about people who live in their units to prevent homelessness and how scary that must be. On our way back to the Center our friend had me pull into a grocery store and she bought us papayas, mangos, pears, bananas, snow peas, strawberries, and a few things to drink. She used her Link card (the new version of food stamps) to pay for everything and then pressed $10 into my hand. We love fruits and vegetables and our budget doesn’t allow for as may of them as we’d like, and she knows that. On one hand, it’s somehow freeing to be in a place where you don’t feel like you need to turn down a friend buying you mangos with her food stamps. On the other hand, I think she is an example of loving your neighbor as yourself.
A few days later I read a story in The RedEye, Chicago’s daily paper, about the huge heroin problem in East Garfield Park and North Lawndale, another west side neighborhood. The article showed pictures of the dead row houses on W. Wilcox, the street behind ours that our church sits on. Our blocks are basically struggling drug hideaways and the only thing the authorities have done is to put up blue police lights and cameras on corners. This only sends sellers and buyers into homes and alleys. Then they feel like prisoners on their own street, before any type of real, helpful crackdown on drugs can even be started. I talked with a friend about how she doesn’t know why people talk up heroin so much because it’s awful. Taking it is like drinking a little too much and getting tired, except one hundred times worse. So, now I know what shooting heroin is like.
A few minutes later, I answered Breakthrough’s doorbell and let in a frazzled, soggy woman who blurted, “I’m here to talk to someone about being homeless.” I sat down with her to fill out an intake form, which lets us know about all her past and present issues, contact information, and how Breakthrough can help her. Three questions in she started crying uncontrollably. She told me that she has no one to trust. She is ashamed because her shoes don’t fit and she’s a mess and she does a lot of drugs – even though she doesn’t want to – and she’s supposed to have a visit, allowed by the Dept. of Human Services (DHS) with her beautiful 6-month-old daughter in an hour. I feel incompetent to give any advice to this much pain. I listened for a few minutes and then got her some breakfast and suggested that we should focus on one thing at a time. She settled down a little bit, and we finished her intake. She ate and met with our manager, Sarah, who helped her get some new clothes and shower. She thanked me several times and I mopped up the mess her snowy black tennis shoes made on the floor. All I know is this: if I believe God is bigger than the pain and humiliation of being too high to see the baby that you carried and the state took away, then He is surely bigger than my incompetence.
Later that day I helped move another women’s belongings to a housing program she recently moved into. Another one of our previous guests lives there too and I took some of her stuff with me to drop off. The basic rule at Breakthrough, pertaining to stuff, is that you have a month to claim your belongings after you move and then we give them away or throw them out. We, unfortunately, don’t have room to store things for women who do not currently live with us. This particular women has been a little bit of a pain, calling and begging us not to throw her stuff out and saying she’s going to come pick it up, and then never showing. I tried to take it to her and the other shelter wouldn’t take it because she wasn’t there. I had to throw it out. I just had to throw someone else’s personal belongings out and I hate that decisions like this have to be made.
I stayed late to work to do that so I took the L home by myself instead of the bus with my roommates. On the platform I saw one of our guests and we rode together. She was on her way to the methadone clinic and then going to see her grandkids. Last week I had to wake her up from the facedown, opiate-induced stupor I found her in on the back couch. But this week she is doing better.
On the walk home from the L I noticed that one of the local dealers, who has either been in hiding or in jail for the past few weeks was back at his house.
That night Meredith and I went back to Breakthrough to help out and watch the children’s Black History Month program. Breakthrough’s children’s staff invited all the parents and brought in the principle of a new area school, East Garfield Prep, to speak to parents. It’s encouraging to work for a program that truly cares about the education of the children they serve. Most of the children attending our after-school-program read at a low level and get little educational help outside of Breakthrough. The principle got up and started talking about all the ideals we believe in for the inner city and it made me tear up.
While we were cleaning up and parents were talking to the principle about enrollment, one of Meredith’s favorite 1st graders came up to me, grabbed my hand and told me he didn’t want me to leave. I asked him if he was confusing me with Meredith. He assured me that he wasn’t and when I asked him why he didn’t want me to leave he said, “because I get sad when the white people leave. Sometimes I go home and don’t like it very much.” It breaks my heart and simultaneously makes me happy that he associates the children’s staff at Breakthrough (about 80% of them are white) with fun, love, and attention, and his house with the opposite. There are so many positive, loving African Americans in our neighborhood but sometimes it seems like there still aren’t enough. That’s one of the ideals that the principle was preaching – the importance of children having adults of the same ethnicity to look up to in their neighborhoods.
Every other week all the Chicago teams meet together for training. This Friday we went to the DeSable Museum of African American History. I was excited to go because this month I’ve been constantly reminded that African American history is not only beautiful and full of love, but it is American history. On the flipside I’m constantly reminded that I don’t know near enough information about African Americans who have shaped the freedoms all of us enjoy and those who are still fighting for freedoms we do not all share. In addition, all the hasty information I learned in school was absolutely not good enough. It angers me that I was taught a little bit about a few, specific, important, black Americans and there are so many I’ve never heard of that I now want to look up to.
Comment [2]
A Lenten Charge / Feb 16, 09:20 PM
Last month we were reading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. If you’ve never read it, I very highly recommend it. Manning writes about God’s love, grace, our humanity, and the tricks we walk right into like no one I’ve ever read. The below passage almost made me jump out of our yellow, plush velvet living room chair. I looked at whoever was in the room and said, “YES,” very loudly; because there is not much else I can say to the truth. Here, Manning is talking about the lies we believe and the devils we continually follow, passing them off under the guise of discipleship.
“The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior. Suddenly I discover I am ministering to AIDS victims to enhance my resume. I find I renounce ice cream to Lent to lose five extra pounds. I drop hints about the absolute priority of meditation and contemplation to create the impression that I am a man of prayer. At some unremembered moment I have lost the connection between internal purity of heart and external works of piety. In the most humiliating sense of the word, I have become a legalist. I have fallen victim to what T.S. Eliot calls the greatest sin: to do the right thing for the wrong reason… At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend to believe we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss.”
Pseudo-repentance.
Pseudo-bliss.
Pseudo-devotion.
Pseudo-religion
Pseudo-me as a pseudo-sinner.
Guilty.
Comment [2]
